


hold that smile on your face, you're not in second place

by tigerlo



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Just another run of the mill discussion about how different Charity and Vanessa's upbringings were, but how they're desperately enamoured with each other regardless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 07:17:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14711568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerlo/pseuds/tigerlo
Summary: Pre-thegirlfrienddiscussion.Vanessa goes out on a limb and invites Charity over for the night. Charity hurts her feelings slightly unintentionally and is left to devise a way to make it up to her.





	hold that smile on your face, you're not in second place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heartsways](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartsways/gifts).



> This is another one of those little 'could be dropped into about a thousand different places' moments anywhere prior to the 'go on, head for the hills' conversation, so take your pick. 
> 
> There's not a good deal that happens, it's just a little opportunity to delve into Charity and Vanessa's lives for the evening, Charity being a devil, you know, that sort of thing. As always there's a bit of chat about Charity's background, so bear that in mind. 
> 
> Oh, and this is for heartsways. Just cause.

 

  
-

 

“Alright?” Charity says, her eyes flashing when Vanessa walks into the pub, and Vanessa can’t help her school girl heart leaping at the way Charity smiles when she does.

 

It’s ridiculous, because she’s in her bloody forties and not her twenties, but her face cracks into a wider smile than she can control at Charity’s obvious reaction to her.

 

“Not bad, yeah,” Vanessa says, her hands finding something on the bar to fiddle with almost immediately, because she’s worked herself up to this all afternoon but now that she’s here, it seems like a terrible idea. “You?”

 

“Can’t complain,” Charity replies with a shrug. “Quiet. Chas buggered off but it means a rest from her squawking, so I suppose that’s not all bad. You got any plans tonight?”

 

“Well,” Vanessa says, her heartbeat picking up in a panic. “I wondered if you wanted to come round actually. Rhona’s got Johnny, and I thought if you….”

 

“If I what, babe?” Charity asks, her expression interested but a little impatient as she sweeps a dirty glass off the bar.

 

“If you wanted to come around….for the night?” Vanessa says, and the words come out quickly, like Charity’s inevitable rebuttal will hurt less if they do.

 

“What?” Charity replies, her face screwed up in a surprised frown, pausing mid-step towards the sink. “Like a sleepover?”

 

Vanessa sighs heavily, trying to cover the hurt. She should have known better than to ask in the first place, knows as soon as the words leave her mouth how _bad_ an idea it was. She was hoping for some small break in Charity’s bullishness, in her snide exterior, to actually spend some time together as mature adults without kids for a night, and laughs before she even finishes the thought at how ridiculous it is.

 

Why she even bothered she has _no_ idea.

 

Only, she does, and it has everything to do with the fact that she’s actually falling for Charity-bloody-Dingle, even though Vanessa’s not sure she isn’t Satan-embodied every other day. She’s so hopelessly enamoured in fact, that she’s here, making a right tit out of herself because she hoped, wildly, that she might have been able to garner a different reaction out of Charity, in spite of the fact that her rational mind knows full well that it’s flaming hopeless.

 

“You know what,” Vanessa says, raising her arms in exasperation. “Forget it.”

 

“Oh come on, babe, I was joking,” Charity replies, scrambling to recover when Vanessa turns away from the bar, reaching for her over the counter, and such an enormous part of her wants to stay, but her bloody self-preservation - and hurt feelings - are already dragging her towards the door.

 

“Vanessa, wait,” comes Charity’s voice when she reaches it, not far behind her, but she doesn’t turn back, because she knows she’ll give in completely the second she catches sight of what she’s sure will be a genuinely apologetic look on Charity’s face.

 

It’s mildly satisfying that Charity had actually bothered to move from behind the bar enough to chase her, it makes her want to turn even more, regardless of the fact that she knows Charity’s self-satisfied smug smile will be near insufferable if she does.

 

But no, she won’t give in. Not this time. Vanessa will leave with her dignity instead.

 

What’s left of it, anyway.

 

-

 

Vanessa tries to busy herself in the afternoon, anything to stop thinking about Charity, until her feet hurt so badly from standing all day and Tracy’s so sick of her that she’s got no choice but to go home.

 

It’s only a silly little - well not even a row really, was it - just another illustration of all the reasons she and Charity will never actually have a relationship if she can’t even do something nice for them without Charity laughing or sneering the idea out of a room.

 

Therein lies the problem though, because - and Vanessa understands this more and more as time passes - she _does_ want something more than just a casual shag with Charity. Her feelings seem to have run off on their merry own, tumbling down a bloody hill gathering more and more momentum to the point where she knows that she likes Charity more than she’s willing to admit.

 

Why else would she care about a stupid night in, and Charity making light of it, if she didn’t actually want to spend time with her.

 

 _God, it’s all too flaming hard,_ Vanessa thinks as she unlocks the door and pushes it open, reaching for the light, surprised and a little confused to find it already switched on. The whole house is lit up actually, and Vanessa isn’t sure how she didn’t notice it from outside, but she doesn’t actually have time to ponder her own lack of attention to detail, because sitting on the couch, looking like Queen-bloody-Regent, legs crossed and nursing a glass of wine with another already poured and waiting on the coffee table, is Charity Dingle.

 

“What are you doing here?” Vanessa blurts out, frowning before she can help herself.

 

“And they say romance is dead?” Charity scoffs, but she’s smiling too, already rising off the couch, swiping the other glass up in her hand and sauntering over to Vanessa with that swagger that always sends a bolt straight to Vanessa’s core. “Fine way to speak to your date for the night, isn’t it?”

 

“I’m sorry,” Vanessa replies, still flustered, only more so when Charity actually reaches her. “It’s just….what are you doing here?”

 

“You invited me, you plum,” Charity says with false confidence, because they both know full well she turned that invite down. “Memory like a sieve, you.”

 

Vanessa wants to call her on it, but honestly she’s that bloody touched Charity is here at all so the last thing she wants to do is risk rocking the boat and pushing Charity out the door with her questions.

 

“No,” Vanessa says instead, accepting the glass of wine as Charity curves her body around Vanessa’s side. “I mean, what are you doing here, _inside_ , and not waiting out on the step.”

 

“Let myself in,” Charity replies casually, shrugging and lifting the glass to her lips, to which Vanessa narrows her eyes immediately.

 

“How?” Vanessa asks with a mildly accusatory glare, because she knows full well that she doesn’t keep a spare out, and there’s no way any member of her family would have given Charity theirs, even if there was some alternate dimension in which Charity would actually have asked to borrow it.

 

She hasn’t given Charity the copy she had made for her yet either, it’s currently sitting in the bottom of her handbag instead, not because she isn’t sure if she actually wants to, but because she’s waiting for a moment when Charity won’t just laugh at her for being so soft.

 

“Come on, babe,” Charity says with a raised eyebrow, turning away from Vanessa to throw herself down on the couch like she owns the place. “Teenage rebel, yeah? I’d be a poor excuse for one if I couldn’t pick a bloody lock.”

 

“You picked my lock?” Vanessa asks before she can stop herself, her mouth dropping open as Charity’s smirk turns a little cool.

 

She hates moments like this, where her naivety shows before she can control it, because it’s not helpful to anyone in this situation - certainly not to Charity who already thinks Vanessa is far too posh and sheltered for her own good.

 

“Yes, Miss Vanilla. I can show you how on my way out, too,” Charity starts, standing up and dropping her wine on the table before Vanessa steps in front of her, effectively blocking Charity from being able to follow her brushfire temper and storm out.

 

Charity glares at her but Vanessa knows it’s all for show, she knows that Charity is well aware that Vanessa would never actually stop her from leaving if she wanted to. She glares right back instead, raising her hand to push against Charity’s puffed out chest with her index finger, the touch barely even there, only implied, and Charity lets her weight drop back down onto the couch with a scowl on her face.

 

“I didn’t ask you to go,” Vanessa says quietly, taking her place next to Charity who presently has her arms crossed over her chest, before picking up both glasses, handing Charity hers, smiling when Charity reluctantly snatches it out of her hand.

 

Vanessa sits back and takes a sip of her wine, waiting, because this is still so very new but she’s beginning to get a good idea of how Charity’s mind works now; what pushes her buttons and what doesn’t, when she’s just pretending to be cross or actually is.

 

She knows when Charity is properly annoyed or when she’s just riding her own argument out to prove a point - which is exactly what’s happening now. Vanessa knows how to play this out though, she’s got Charity’s number. She knows that if she waits, if she doesn’t bite, that eventually Charity will come around of her own accord, completely unsatisfied when Vanessa hasn’t risen to the bait.

 

There’s a loud and rude sigh that issues from Charity a few seconds later, and Vanessa has to hastily hide her smirk before Charity sees it and _actually_ leaves in a huff, replacing it with a carefully practised air of patience instead.

 

“Look, you took too bloody long to come home and it was cold out, alright. _And_ I was thirsty,” Charity adds as an afterthought, as though needing something else to justify her actions. She turns to face Vanessa properly. “It was slip in through the back or go home, and I didn’t fancy Chas and the kids in my ear all night.”

 

She throws the last few words casually, like it’s nothing much to be here other than that this was slightly more convenient than the alternative, and it rubs Vanessa just a little up the wrong way. She knows it’s just Charity’s way of protecting herself, and she knows she doesn’t mean it - because Charity Dingle never does anything unless she _absolutely_ wants to, and if she didn’t want to be here, she wouldn’t be - but it still hurts sometimes, the insinuation that spending time with Vanessa is nothing more than a distraction from the boredom of her evenings sat at home.

 

“You wanted to come though?” Vanessa says more than asks, straightening her back and painting a slightly haughty look on her face, deciding that she’s actually not prepared to just let Charity fob this one off.

 

“I told you,” Charity begins with another melodramatic sigh. “I didn’t want—“

 

“ _Charity_ ,” Vanessa says, cutting her off, and she doesn’t mean to let the exhaustion show in her tone but she can it hear slip regardless, not overly sorry when she sees it hit Charity like a slap in the face.

 

“Oh alright,” Charity hisses quickly, rolling her eyes, and Vanessa takes the feigned annoyance as the apology she’s come to know it as, instead. “It sounded like heaven, having a flaming sleepover without a snotty nose in sight - is that what you wanted to hear? That I couldn’t get it out of my head all afternoon and came running over ‘ere the second I could ditch Chas.”

 

She’s all bluff and bluster, setting her glass down again and throwing her arms up in the air as if to accentuate her over-dramatised point, but it stops Vanessa in her tracks, because there’s truth in what Charity’s saying, she can see it clear as day even if Charity thinks she’s hidden it so well behind her bravado, and it makes her _glow_.

 

Because Charity Dingle with a heart - Vanessa had always assumed mostly made of stone - has been thinking about spending the evening with her all afternoon.

 

She knows exactly why Charity broke in too, rather than just waiting for Vanessa like any normal person, because she was likely worried Vanessa wouldn’t let her in after her performance earlier in the pub, probably wanted to save herself the potential pain of Vanessa flat out rejecting her at the door, knowing full well that it’s almost impossible for Vanessa to turn her away once she’s settled inside. No, she _knows_ that there’s no way Vanessa will send her off once she can see the evening play itself out in front of them with Charity ensconced on the couch like a part of the furniture.

 

Vanessa knows it’s dangerous to think of Charity like that, such an easily integrated part of her nights, but she is, despite all the conflict and snotty comments and push-pull from Charity the second something resembling domesticity peaks on the horizon.  She slots into Vanessa’s life so easily when she stops thrashing against it.

 

“I was gutted all afternoon, you know that, don’t you?” Vanessa asks, giving Charity a little something in reply to her insincerely sincere confession.

 

“About what?” Charity questions, genuinely confused, looking at Vanessa with a frown.

 

“About you laughing me out of the pub,” Vanessa explains, taking a sip so she doesn’t have to watch the smug look in Charity’s eye.

 

“Why were you gutted? Because I’d turned you down in front of the regulars?” Charity asks, defaulting to assuming Vanessa’s upset is due to her embarrassment, because it couldn’t possibly be anything else.

 

“Because I was looking forward to spending the evening with you,” Vanessa says instead, voice exasperated, her own frustration almost getting the better of her now. “Hadn’t spent half the bloody morning working myself up to ask you, knowing you’d probably only laugh at me, had I?”

 

“So it weren’t because I might have made you look like a tit then?” Charity asks, and if it were anyone else she’d think them obtuse, but she can see that Charity is genuinely trying to get her head around the actual reason for Vanessa’s disappointment.

 

“No, you daft mare, it was because I wanted to see you,” Vanessa replies simply, and her response is a little softer this time.

 

“If you wanted to see me that badly, you should have just said,” Charity says with a smirk, turning to Vanessa and kissing her thoroughly, and Vanessa’s stomach drops but it’s not only due to Charity’s kiss, it’s because she _still_ doesn’t understand - automatically assuming it’s only because Vanessa wants sex.

 

Which - let’s be honest, she wouldn’t turn down with Charity, even sick with the flu - but it’s not that. Well, it’s not all that.

 

“Charity,” Vanessa says, pushing at her shoulders lightly, taking care not to let go, fully aware of the way Charity will jerk away if she thinks she’s being rebuffed. “You know that’s not the only reason why I asked you round, don’t you? Is it so hard to believe I actually just want to spend time with you?”

 

“Yes,” Charity spits, levelling Vanessa with a glare that just makes her sad. “It is, alright. People don’t normally hang about for the pleasure of my company, do they? Not unless we’re both naked.”

 

“Yeah, well, I’m not normal people am I?” Vanessa replies, sliding her hands down Charity’s arms now that she’s more confident Charity’s not going to bolt the second she lets go.

 

“That you most certainly are not, babe,” Charity says with a laugh, and Vanessa knows it sounds dismissive but she can’t help but feel the compliment she thinks Charity is trying to feed her as well.

 

Vanessa settles against the back of the couch, more than a little satisfied when Charity moves to sit next to her, close, shoulder to shoulder. Without looking at her, or saying a thing, Charity picks Vanessa’s hand up from it's resting place in her lap, threading their fingers together before sighing heavily.

 

“Did you really just want to spend the evening with me?” Charity asks, staring resolutely outwards, not diverting her gaze to look at Vanessa, and Vanessa can hear the insecurity clear around her words, in the way she squeezes her grip tight.

 

“Yes, Charity,” Vanessa replies calmly, trying to smother the twinge that sounds in her chest at the fact that something like that is so foreign to Charity - that someone would want to do something as small as spend the night with her without expecting anything for it. “I did. I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to turn you down if you get a bit handsy later, but—“

 

“I _knew_ it,” Charity says, victorious, mumbling something under her breath that sounds like _who’s the horny cow, now then_ before finally looking at her, but Vanessa thinks Charity understands as well.

 

She’s not prepared to just take the chance though, she wants to make sure Charity gets it, _properly_ gets it, that she’s worth more than a casual romp in the sack - no matter how good or wild they might be.

 

“But, I actually just wanted to see you,” Vanessa says clearly, no room for Charity to misread or misunderstand her. “No mind games, I just…. wanted to spend time with you, is all.”

 

“Feeling a little left out, are we buttercup?” Charity asks, her voice teasing, but Vanessa can feel the air change around them now. There’s no malice in Charity’s words, only playfulness, and something that might just be a sincere question.

 

“If you must know, I am a bi—“ Vanessa begins but she’s cut off halfway through her sentence when Charity kisses her breath from her lungs.

 

Vanessa smiles into the kiss, into Charity’s own obvious reluctant happiness at weaselling the truth out of her, but she doesn’t mind giving it up, would give everything without hesitating for a second if she didn’t think it would make Charity question the genuineness of it.

 

“I missed you too,” Charity grumbles so quietly that Vanessa almost misses it when she breaks their kiss. “Just a bit, I mean. You’ve been too bloody busy lately, it’s hard to get a second alone you without Rhona or Paddy or cow muck stuck to you.”

 

“It’s my job,” Vanessa says with a sigh, and she’s half expecting Charity to pull away but the admission actually only makes her first her hands in Vanessa’s coat and pull her closer.

 

“Yeah, I know it is, I’m not an idiot,” Charity replies, sounding almost frustrated by the fact, her eyes dropping to Vanessa’s lips and her breath warm on Vanessa’s cheek. “It’s why I wasn’t gonna pass up a night like this without seein’ you, was I?”

 

“Could’ve told me that at the pub, you know?” Vanessa grumbles, dropping her hands to rest on Charity’s knees. She knows it’s not quite an apology, but it might be the closest that she gets.

 

“Why? Not really my style is it, the whole clear communication thing?” Charity shrugs, but her smile is softer, now, _hungry_. “Like to keep a girl waiting, me.”

 

“Well you need to be careful, you know,” Vanessa says smoothly, sliding her hands under Charity’s knees, pulling herself closer to Charity with the leverage.

 

“Oh yeah?” Charity asks with a slightly amused frown, looking down, moving to tease her lips against Vanessa’s, not quite placing a kiss there yet. “And why is that?”

 

“Maybe some girls don’t know what the score is when you do?” Vanessa says, and her voice is shy now, quiet, and she loathes to admit it - she knows Charity will probably just make fun of her regardless, but she wants it off her chest and out into the air between them.

 

“Yeah, well, if she’d come home earlier she would have known exactly what the bloody score was, wouldn’t she?” Charity replies, raising her eyebrow as if to accentuate her point.

 

“Maybe she was in a mood, trying not to think about how much fun she could have had if only someone kept her trap shut for once,” Vanessa says in return, her eyes looking hungrily for Charity’s reaction to her intentionally inflammatory answer, her stomach dropping when she gets it, when Charity’s eyes darken like a cloud passing over them.

 

“And what kind of fun is that, babe?” Charity purrs, her tone thick and seductive, like it had been before the very first time they’d slept together.

 

She could just answer but it’s so much more satisfying to kiss that look off Charity’s face instead, to watch that flash in Charity’s eyes just before their lips meet. A spark of excitement. Of lust.

 

Charity’s a good kisser, the best actually, she’s the best at everything else too, and in the beginning Vanessa had wished that she hadn’t made that so clear, that she hadn’t put it on the table so obviously, but she knows now that it was the best thing in the world to do. She knew in the beginning that Charity came back because Vanessa must have given her something she wanted too, but now she thinks Charity came back, that she _comes_ back, because she knows where she stands, because Vanessa doesn’t ever play games. Because Vanessa makes it abundantly clear how much she wants her.

 

It’s validating, Vanessa thinks. In a way that little else has probably ever been in Charity’s life.

 

Her hand snakes beneath Charity’s top when they kiss, and Vanessa almost moans at the sound Charity makes when she cups her breast.

 

“ _That_ kind of fun,” Vanessa says when they part, her breath laboured, the taste of Charity - the sweetness of the wine and something else, something indescribably addictive and quintessentially _her_ \- on her tongue.

 

“Oh, I thought you meant a puzzle or somethin’, didn’t I?” Charity teases, and there’s a lightness in her voice that makes Vanessa’s heart sing.

 

It makes her happy, because she doesn’t know the depth of Charity’s history yet but she sees the pain in the lines around her eyes, the way that Charity takes every step with the weight of it on her shoulders while trying to pretend it doesn’t cost her almost everything to do so, and she sees the way that never leaves her, Charity never gets a reprieve, unless she’s with Vanessa.

 

And it’s not self-congratulating, she’s not trying to blow her own horn, but she watches Charity, she’s noticed things. Vanessa’s been fascinated by her since the first time they kissed, and it’s something that’s been so impossible to miss - the burden - it breaks Vanessa’s heart to think she hasn’t noticed it before, that no one else has - that no one’s ever done anything to help lift it so that Charity can gasp a single free breath.

 

The thing is, Charity acts so cavalier and carefree all the damn time, like there’s nothing in the world that bothers her, like she can shrug off every single insult - most of which would drop Vanessa to her knees - like they’re nothing, and Vanessa has always taken that at face value before but it’s actually such an obvious facade once Vanessa cares enough to look.

 

Charity Dingle, the _real_ one, the one warm beneath Vanessa’s hands with a coat that smells vaguely of cigarette smoke and peppermint and the perfume that makes Vanessa’s heart thump in her chest every time she catches its scent, is a little bit extraordinary, because she tricks the whole world into thinking she hasn’t a care in it when she’s actually got a burden darker and denser than the rest of them put together.

 

Charity bites her lip, bringing her out of her head, sharp enough for Vanessa to make a noise in reply and scowl, and she sets her mind on pushing Charity back against the couch and exacting some kind of revenge, but Charity isn’t having a bar of it tonight. The second she tries to shift her weight, Charity responds, throwing hers forward, pinning Vanessa - bloody coat and all - to the couch, her hands wrapped tight around Vanessa’s biceps, holding her down.

 

“No way, babe,” Charity breathes, her words warming Vanessa’s lips, her eyes glowing. “You’re mine tonight.”

 

“What exactly does being _yours_ entail?” Vanessa asks, shrugging out of her coat as quickly as she can when Charity leans back to help her, yanking it off her arms and throwing it over the back of the couch.

 

“Dunno yet,” Charity replies, smiling with a dangerously broad intent, walking her fingers between Vanessa’s breasts, and it makes her squirm, even through the fabric of her shirt. “Whatever I’d like, I suppose. Do you want to find out?”

 

 _More than I’ve wanted anything my entire life_ , is what Vanessa wants to say, but she doesn’t know if Charity’s ready to hear that, so she reaches up, scratching her nails against Charity’s scalp, smirking when Charity _mewls_ against her and says something she knows will be more palatable to Charity’s fight or flight response, instead.

 

“What do you think,” Vanessa responds boldly, taking Charity’s hand and leading it down her stomach and beneath the waistband of her pants, her breath unsteady when Charity growls at what she finds.

 

It succeeds in wiping the self-satisfied look off of Charity’s face - for a few seconds anyway - before it returns even stronger when Charity absorbs the fact that Vanessa feels that for her. Because of her.

 

“It’s very sexy, you know,” Vanessa says in broken syllables when Charity pops the button of her trousers open, giving herself more room to move. “The whole bad girl act, I mean.”

 

Charity barks a laugh out at that, but it’s not cruel, not like others Vanessa has heard her utter, no. It’s deep and genuine instead, so much so that Vanessa locks the pitch of it away next to her heart.

 

She’s always been an object of rampant desire for Vanessa, a physical expression of uncontrolled, red-hot _want_ , and sometimes, when Vanessa doesn’t think it possible to desire Charity more, she digs deeper, reveals a whole other layer to her sexual magnetism, and Vanessa just melts beneath her.

 

“Oh, _babe_ ,” Charity purrs, her voice low and dangerous, the sound reverberating in Vanessa’s chest between her ribs before she leans down to whisper in Vanessa’s ear. “It’s not an act. You’ve got no idea how deep it really goes, either.”

 

Vanessa struggles to remember ever being kissed like this before, by Charity or anyone else, she struggles to remember her own bloody name even. Charity’s tongue slides against her own, hot and wet and dirty, her fingers teasing against her, sliding _inside_ , and Vanessa feels the throb in her fingertips.

 

“I’m bad to the bone, me,” Charity hums, taking Vanessa’s earlobe between her teeth, her voice like an accelerant, like petrol on a naked flame. “Rotten to the _core_.”

 

And Vanessa knows she’s not. She knows there’s light there, even if Charity doesn’t see it, will swear with her last breath that she believes there not to be. Vanessa has _seen_ it.

 

“Come, Ness,” Charity drawls, she beckons, as Vanessa loses her mind. As she feels her body become blurred around the edges. “Come play with me, in the dark.”

 

-

**Author's Note:**

> There's a little snippet of dialogue and text - one line, in fact - in this that's one of my favourite pieces of work I think I've ever written, it's fairly innocuous but if someone can spot it, I'll do my best to write a wee drabble on tumblr for you. 
> 
> Pop over there to [tumblr](http://tigerlo.tumblr.com) if you'd like by the way, there are a few drabble/vignette things if you fancy a bit of extra vanity reading.
> 
> xx


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